Don’t air your (clean) laundry in public

Although it’s hard to imagine in the middle of August, when the temperature’s hitting 49.3˚C, the wind feels like an industrial hairdryer and your entire body’s glazed in dust and sweat, there are some distinct advantages to living in a desert climate.

You rarely need to cancel a barbecue because it’s raining, for example. You don’t need central heating, and you never need bother about buying an overcoat and boots. But one of the most unrecognised advantages of living in the desert is the incredibly short amount of time it takes to dry washing in the sun.

Quite seriously, every British expat who moves here – used to shrinking their jumpers in a drier, leaving their towels festering in a damp kitchen or hanging their socks over a radiator – has a raised-eyebrow moment when they put a load of washing under the UAE sun and find it’s dried (usually to a sandy crisp) just 20 minutes later.

It’s actually not a new thing: The battle against unsightly balconies in the UAE has gone on for 15 years. In Dubai, a law against drying washing on street-facing balconies was introduced in 1999. In Sharjah, the law was introduced in 1997, to “preserve the public health and the beautiful image of the city”. A crackdown in Sharjah in 2011 saw 3,753 people fined AED 250 (£44) per offence in the first half of the year alone.

In some of Dubai’s new communities, rules set by the master developers are even more specific. Residents of some these communities, including Palm Jumeirah, were told in February that they will be fined AED 500 (£87) per offence for having barbecues, satellite dishes, sheets, clothes, curtains, rugs, mops and laundry on their balconies, or for using balconies as storage space. The purpose, read the ruling, was to “preserve the upscale appearance” of Dubai and reclaim the “overall aesthetics of the emirate.”

I have to say, I agree – there’s a lot to be said for not airing your laundry in public. Even if it’s clean.

Annabel Kantaria is a journalist who moved to Dubai long before most people knew where it was. She doesn’t ride a camel to work; has never seen a gold-plated golf buggy and only rarely has pink champagne for breakfast. Follow her on Twitter: @BellaKay